Inside and out TOR JOHNSON SAILS with HIS FATHER, SISTER and FRIENDS on a VOYAGE of REDISCOVERY AROUND SPECTACULAR VANCOUVER ISLAND
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
inside and out TOR JOHNSON SAILS WITH HIS FATHER, SISTER AND FRIENDS ON A VOYAGE OF REDISCOVERY AROUND SPECTACULAR VANCOUVER ISLAND Keala navigates the rocky entrance to the Bunsby Islands, on Vancouver Island’s west coast 22 23 CRUISING ‘Sailing has been an adventure as well as a way to share the skills of seamanship’ Donald Johnson, the one who started his family tradition Sister Anne Marie and family off to explore Kwatzi Bay by dinghy At 94 years of age, my father, Donald, still Columbia, visiting my sister’s family, I talked to a hates sitting in harbour. He lives in La Conner, gregarious fellow sailor moored behind us at a yacht Washington, on a cliff overlooking the Swinomish club. I told him of our intended voyage up the inside Channel, where he can keep an eye on the of Vancouver Island with my sister and her family to fishermen, loggers, and eagles that ply the waters of Port McNeill, where we’d meet my father and Christine the Pacific Northwest. for a cruise north to the next island chain, the Queen In a life of sailing around the world, my father has Charlottes. I’d make the return trip double-handed along wrung more salt water out of his socks than most of us the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island with a surfing will ever see. The world is full of “harbour-sitters,” as he friend from Hawaii. calls them, trading horror stories of deadly gales over “I’d never leave the Sunshine Coast. All there is up there drinks while waiting for perfect weather conditions to are bears and bad weather,” said our new friend. leave the dock. “Lots of fog up there too.” Although over the years he has been called My father may well be right about not listening to adventurous and even reckless, depending on the those dire dockside warnings about bears and bad › observer, I’ve always known my father to be a cautious skipper. He has taken my mother, brother, sister, and me safely across both oceans to places as varied as Norway, Arctic Ocean Turkey, the Philippines and Vanuatu. In all those miles, Dixon Entrance Prince USA Rupert I can’t recall ever being in a dangerous sea. As kids ALASKA CANADA GRAHAM Hercate Strait BRITISH we missed a lot of school but came back with skills in ISLAND Juneau COLUMBIA Bering Gulf of celestial navigation and the experience of standing night HAIDA CANADA Sea Alaska GWAII Vancouver watch with the safety of everyone aboard in our young MORESBY ISLAND HOTSPRING hands. Sailing has been an adventure as well as a way to ISLAND Pacific Gwaii Haanas Klemtu Ocean National Park Seattle share the skills of seamanship in our family. Reserve Bella USA 52°N Bella Among the many places we visited together, one of my Rose father’s favourites was the First Nations Reserve of Gwaii Harbour Queen BROUGHTON Queen Charlotte Charlotte ARCHIPELAGO Haanas on the Queen Charlotte Islands. Ancient totem N Sound Strait Kwatsi Bay Marina Tribune Channel poles still stand sentinel over majestic Haida village sites. Cape Scott Guise Bay Port When my father told me he wanted to make one more McNeill Winter Harbour Alert Bay trip out there with his friend, Christine, I pulled out the Brooks Peninsula VANCOUVER Strait of Georgia Keala points up the charts. Vancouver Island’s system of ferries, roads, and Pacific BUNSBY ISLANDS ISLAND Ocean Nuchalitz Tribune Channel, near the air service would allow me to rotate my crew among Yuquot or Friendly Cove Vancouver Hot Springs Cove Broughton Archipelago. three generations of family and several old friends from 0 25 50 75 100 Tofino Sidney Sailing here can be magical, voyages past. Uclulet Victoria nautical miles Strait of at least while the wind lasts We had sailed Keala, our Jeanneau 44i, from her 48°N Juan de Fuca La Conner birthplace in La Rochelle, France, across the Atlantic. USA While in the protected confines of Sidney, British 130°W 126°W 24 25 CRUISING weather, but our fellow sailor actually did have a point: Right: totem why leave the safety and comfort of the inside route? pole at Coal There are cruising grounds enough in the Inside Passage Harbour, highly to keep a cruiser busy for a lifetime. recommended He and most of the thousands of sailors in places for a fascinating like Seattle and Sidney BC don’t leave protected seaplane history waters because they don’t have to. With a few notable museum. exceptions, it’s possible to sail through the intricate Below: old float network of islands and fjords of the Inside Passage from house at Sointula. Tacoma, just south of Seattle, to Alaska’s panhandle It’s a house boat without encountering much open sea. at high tide And the weather really is better. Summer temperatures on the protected Sunshine Coast, to which our friend referred, range in the teens and twenties and water temperatures get up to over 20°C in long fjord-like inlets. Swimming is actually a thing. PARTICULAR CHALLENGES You might never see an ocean swell, but that’s not to say cruising the inside route is without its challenges. First among these are strong tidal currents. The more constricted passages turn into turbulent rapids with currents in double digits several times a day. Since it’s impossible for yachts and other low-powered vessels to negotiate these rapids, it’s essential to arrive at slack water. When possible we plan for slack ebb or flood to carry a favourable current along our course. Another challenge is the astounding number of logs. Logging is a major industry in British Columbia, and loose logs, some virtually submerged, can disable a small Wheateeam Bay is a welcome calm anchorage at boat. It requires a constant lookout. sunset after crossing the notorious Hecate Strait Tugs towing thousands of logs in a huge boom may require the entire channel to manoeuvre, as we found when forced into an impromptu gybing drill first thing inside Vancouver Island was sailing into Broughton ‘A pod of dolphins raced past, so in rhythm in the morning on our way out of port. Common practice Archipelago. For once we had a favourable wind and is to keep a watch on VHF Ch16 in narrow channels and managed to sail 25 miles inland up the Tribune Channel, they looked like a breaking wave’ to wait your turn after the last oncoming vessel uses the which became like a fjord between immense rock cliffs. end of the tide to get through. Large car ferries, travelling Suddenly a gray whale blew to starboard, while a pod of at high speeds, commonly cross the channels at oblique several hundred fast, agile Pacific white-sided dolphins angles. They always have the right of way, a fact of which reached nearly across the entire channel, surfacing met us near Alert Bay, an old fishing town and First Burke Murphy, an old friend from my days teaching they seem well aware. in quick succession. They raced past as a group, so in Nations community at the north end of the Vancouver sailing in Santa Cruz, flew out to join us. A shipwright As our friend forecasted, fog became a challenge the rhythm they looked like a breaking wave. Island. After a distinguished career defusing bombs living and working in the south of France, Burke does fine moment we emerged north from the protection of Furling our sails at the head of the channel, we found for the Navy, Tracy had just completed a degree in woodwork on classic sailing yachts. He was astounded Vancouver Island into Queen Charlotte Strait. It was often the friendly little floating dock at Kwatsi Bay Marina anthropology at the University of Hawaii. to learn that the Haida use Sitka spruce – in his world a thick in the mornings, which meant keeping an eye on nestled in a steep bowl of mountains. A group of veteran He’d already learned about Alert Bay’s famous U’mista prized boatbuilding material – mainly for firewood. The the AIS, radar, nearby fishermen, ferries, and logs all at cruisers were surrounded by food and drink, and getting Cultural Centre, a cutting edge modern museum Watchman offered to sell him a few ancient trees from the same time. Mercifully, most days saw the fog burn off well into the local Happy Hour tradition. housing a treasure of elaborate and wondrous dance the protected reserve, something so ludicrous that we all by mid-afternoon. Tracy Dixon, a surfing friend who had cruised masks of the local First Nations group with the nearly burst out laughing. Like many island cultures, the Haida For my sister, the highlight of the entire route with us in the Philippines when we were both kids, unpronounceable name of Kwakwaka’wakw. Many of appear to value a good joke. these ancient masks have made epic journeys, only For us, the old whaling station at Rose Harbour was recently finding their way back home to this museum. particularly interesting. On the southern tip of Gwaii Haanas, Rose Harbour is the only privately owned area in LINKS TO THE PAST the reserve. From a rustic cabin, a small group of young On Moresby Island, the southern section of the Queen people provide home cooking to the hungry kayakers Charlottes, is a Haida Heritage site called Gwaii Haanas. and sailors who pass through. One worker told us of a Home to the Haida for over 1,500 years, the area was Haida war canoe in the forest, which we found after some abruptly abandoned when European disease decimated searching through the huge cedar trees.